


tonys towel team

by elliott (amywaited)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cute, Fluff, Its a bit weird, LMAO, Oneshit, Oneshot, idk what this is??, tony has weird habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/elliott
Summary: tony has some weird habits





	tonys towel team

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy it!

Okay, Tony could admit it. Maybe he was bored. Really bored.

  
He had completely finished up everything Pepper had asked him to do for Stark Industries (including things that weren’t needed for another six months). And he had no upgrades to make to his suits. There wasn’t any Avengers tech to play around with, either.

  
It was either make another Artificial Intelligence (which he already had enough of) or find something new and hopefully exciting to do.

  
“Jarvis?” Tony asks. “Any suggestions?”

  
“How about a knitting class?” Jarvis suggests and Tony actually can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not.

  
“You’re kidding, right? I hope you’re kidding,” Tony says. “Now be serious. Do we have anything that needs upgrading?”

  
“No, sir. All suits are up to date. There is nothing else that needs fixing.”

  
Tony groans. “Find me something, okay? An online course, the blueprints for a rocket ship, anything.”

  
Jarvis sends a link through to his computer screen, and Tony swipes it up onto the television screen in his workshop. “What are we doing, then?” He asks.

  
If Jarvis had a physical body, Tony could swear he’d be smirking and winking at him. “We’re learning how to fold towels into shapes.”

  
“Are you fucking-“ Tony sighs. “You know what? Whatever. I’m gonna ace this.”

  
“I’m sure you will, sir,” Jarvis says, semi encouragingly, but he’s probably just teasing.

  
“You watch me, J,” Tony says, nabbing a towel from the bathroom. Its a little bit grease-stained, but a bit of oil never hurt any one, right?

  
“I have utmost faith in you, sir.”

  
Tony grins and plays the video attachment.

  
-/-

  
It takes him about half an hour to master a basic swan shape (and if he had to reply to video seven times, well, no one has to know). By the end of it, he has several swan towels scattered around him. There are a few basic shapes too, like hearts, but Tony prefers the harder ones, no matter how frustrating.

  
“Told you I could do it, J.”

  
“I always believed in you, sir.”

  
Tony picks up a wine red towel from the (clean) stack he had collected from upstairs. He folds it into the shape of a knife (with the help of a YouTube tutorial) and places it aside.

  
He continues to make towel shapes and then delivers one to each of the Avenger’s rooms. There’s a bow for Clint, the knife is for Natasha. He made Thor a hammer and even if it looks nothing like Mjolner, Thor would be happy with it. Steve has a circle (its supposed to be his shield, but it doesn’t look like it).

  
-/-

  
It doesn’t take long for one of them to confront him about it.

  
“Whats this?” Natasha says, holding her knife towel in front of him.

  
Tony hums. “Its a knife towel.”

  
“A what?”

  
“A towel shaped like a knife.”

  
“Did you make it?” Natasha asks.

  
“Yup.”

  
“I didn’t know you made towel shapes,” she says, fiddling with the towel.

  
“It was that or knitting,” Tony shrugs. “Its not that hard.”

  
“Huh. Have you only done towels?”

  
“I only learnt two hours ago,” Tony says. “What else should I do?”

  
Natasha hums. “Napkins, maybe.”

  
Tony perks up. “Napkins! Yes!”

  
“It wasn’t.. Actually, yeah. That is a good idea, isn’t it?” Natasha says.

  
“Yes! Thanks, Nat!” Tony leaps up, presumably to go find cloth napkins. If he even had any.

  
Actually, he probably did (somewhere. Maybe in a storage locker on the other side of the country). Pepper was the sort of person who liked silk napkins, she had probably brought him a set.

  
“Well, you’re welcome,” Natasha says. “I think.”

  
-/-

  
Tony dumps the pack of napkins on his workbench. There’s six in the pack, wrapped in plastic. The actual napkin is purple (its got to be Pepper), with little gold embellishments. Maybe if Tony was a Praetor in Ancient Rome, he’d like them.

l  
But he isn’t, and honestly, they’re kind of ugly. Not that he’d ever tell Pepper. They aren’t really on speaking terms (aside from for business) and honestly, Pepper can be as scary as Natasha when she wants to be. Sometimes even more so.  
But they’d do for now. And who cares if he got engine oil on them? They’re yucky, and maybe a little personal touch might make them look better. What's more personal then engine oil?

  
He makes more little swans. After all, napkins and towels are the same sort of thing. Its the same principle. Just on a smaller scale. 

  
The fiddly parts are hard though, and he finds himself having to retrieve his glasses (from wherever he last dumped them) and put them on. Tony finds the frames lying lenses down on some sandpaper. Oops. The left arm is dripping in.. something. He’d rather not find out.  
He wipes them quickly (the.. thing on the frames comes away and leaves a black smudge on his t-shirt. He tells himself not to worry) and slides them onto his nose.

  
The glasses slip down a lot, and between reminding himself to tighten the screws, Tony also has to do the “Scrunchy-Glasses-Face”, as Peter had so kindfully dubbed it. But he also has little swans now. And big swans. Maybe too many swans.

  
He tries to make a star for Bucky, and it takes him four attempts until he gets it perfect. He doesn’t attempt Cap’s shield again. Besides, it would look weird in purple.

  
-/-

  
There’s pizza downstairs. Steve comes down to tell him (and thankfully, doesn’t ask why he’s surrounded by multicoloured, cloth swans).

  
“Okay. I’ll be up in a sec,” Tony says.

  
“Alright. Bruce ordered you half and half veggie and meat feast. Why get meat and veggie?” Steve asks. “Doesn’t it sort of.. contradict?”

  
Tony grins. “A little. But I like both.”

  
“Fair enough,” Steve says. “Don’t be too long. Clint seems extra hungry.”

  
“Clint always seems extra hungry,” Tony mutters, straightening out the beak on one of his swans. “Okay, I’m coming.” He grabs one of his purple napkins as he stands, letting it fall apart before following Steve to the elevator.

  
-/-

  
Tony spends the majority of their meal assembling, disassembling and then reassembling a swan out of the napkin. Bruce and Steve pay his fiddling no attention. Natasha watches his fingers move and Clint attempts to steal the napkin on multiple occasions.

  
Clint stops when Tony slaps him (a little too hard, if Tony's honest. Tough love).

  
“Where’d you learn that, Stark?” Clint does ask, after Tony hit him.

  
“YouTube,” Tony says. “About five hours ago.”

  
“Is that why I have a circle on my bed?” Steve asks.

  
Natasha snorts. “You got a circle?”

  
“It was meant to be your shield,” Tony says.

  
“Well, I got a bow,” Clint says.

  
“I got a knife,” Natasha sticks her tongue out at Clint. “Knives are cooler.”

  
“Disagree,” Clint says. “Strongly.”

  
Natasha twirls a pizza cutter through her fingers. “Sure?”

  
Clint stands his ground (Tony mentally curses him in his head. Why would you disagree with Tasha? That women could kill you seven different ways in less than a second). “Yep.”

  
Tony develops a bit of grudging respect for the archer.

  
-/-

  
Tony keeps making them napkins. He doesn’t go back to towels, actually. He prefers the fiddly challenge of smaller material. He also invests in some more cloth napkins, and orders them in a range of colours. Namely, red, green, blue and white.

  
He also makes Bruce a little green hulk napkin, and leaves it on his place at the table. There isn’t any other napkins because really, who needs napkins for take out pizza?

  
The team all converge in the living room, where there is a horrifyingly tall stack of pizza boxes. Natasha glares at Clint and says “If you even think about making a Leaning Tower of Pizza joke, I will end you.”

  
Clint shuts his mouth.

  
Steve is the first to sit down and starts opening boxes. He hands them off to everyone.

  
The team sits in silence for five minutes, all staring at Tony.

  
“Uh- isn’t any one hungry?” Tony says.  
Natasha looks pointedly at Bruce’s napkin. “Don’t we need something to wipe our hands on?”

  
Tony splutters. “You’re- you’re kidding, right?”

  
Clint shakes his head. “Nope. Bruce gets one. Why don’t we?”

  
Tony sighs out a laugh. “What? Are you jealous?”

  
Steve glances between the three of them. “Well, I’m not a three year old, so I’m going to eat my pizza before it gets cold.”

  
Clint glares at Steve. “So what? We want napkins.”

  
Tony ends up making them napkins.

  
-/-

  
It becomes a sort of tradition between them.

  
At meal times, particularly evening ones, none of them will eat until Tony has made them a personalised napkin figure each.

  
The team also starts to hang onto the napkins, which causes a couple of problems.

  
The first one being Tony has to bulk buy napkins every few months. Which, one, costs a lot, two, means there is a very fortunate napkin company out there and, three, there are now rumors that Tony gets off on napkins.

  
(Thank you, napkin company, for spreading that rumor).

  
There are also various napkin shapes spread throughout and all over the upper floors of his tower.

  
At first, Tony thought it was cute. And he smiled every time he saw one.

  
Then Thor broke his (mildly ugly, so it wasn’t a massive issue) coffee table after tripping over one Clint had left on the floor. Pepper would be upset, Tony was just annoyed that he had to clear up tiny shards of glass.

  
Thor apologised profusely, and Tony really had no choice but to forgive him. Godly puppy dog eyes are incredibly hard to resist.

  
Thats when Tony had the idea.

  
-/-

  
The display case was delivered next day. Which was good, because it took Tony five hours to put together. Thankfully, the team (minus him, of course) had gone out for sushi, or some other form of raw fish.

  
Although, really? Was raw fish supposed to take five hours to eat? Tony suspected maybe Clint had gotten food poisoning from it. Oh well.

  
At least it gave him enough time to build his cabinet.

  
It also gave him enough time to gather up all the various napkins and deposit them inside the glass case.

  
There. No more tripping over, broken coffee tables or smad Pepper.

  
-/-

  
They all returned after seven hours (what sort of fish were they eating?) and not one of them noticed the lack of napkins.

  
“Wh-“ Steve starts. “Um, Tony?” He wonders out from the dining room, where Tony had put the case. “Whats the cabinet for?”

  
Tony grins. “Napkins. Now you lot get to keep them, and I don’t have anyone tripping over them.” He looks pointedly at Clint when he says the last bit. Clint does nothing but grin, a bit sharklike.

  
“Oh,” Steve says. “Um, good idea. I think.”

  
“Why, thank you, Captain. Anyway, where’d you lot get to today? I thought you were getting sushi.”

  
“We were,” Natasha says. “Then we went laser tagging.”

  
“Without me?” Tony asks, pouting.

  
Steve gestures to the case. “Obviously, you were busy.”

  
-/-

  
There’s a new napkin in the case.

  
Tony doesn’t know who made it, because it definitely wasn’t him. He’s staring at it so closely, his breath is fogging up the glass and his nose is almost touching it.

  
“Like it?” Clint asks.

  
Tony jumps. “Wha- Who- What?”

  
Clint grins. “The napkin. We made it. For you.”

  
Tony turns to look at Clint. “What?”

  
“Jesus, Stark. Thought you were a genius,” Clint opens the display case door and pulls out the little Iron Man napkin. “This. We made, for you.”

  
Tony plucks it out of Clints hand. “Really?”

  
“Yes, really.”

  
“Hey, Tony, guess what we- Clint!” Natasha walks in. “Why did you tell him already?”

  
“He found it!” Clint exclaims. “I just thought-“

  
Nat hums. “Whatever.”

  
“So you did make it for me?” Tony asks her.

  
“Well, you’ve made us more than enough,” Natasha explains. “Figured it was our turn.”

 

They all lapse into silence. Until:

  
“Dude, are you _crying_?”

  
-/-

  
Peter (Parker, not Quill) comes over for dinner the next night. He spends half an hour staring at their napkins. Tony spends half an hour staring at Peter stare at their napkins.

  
Then Peter announces, “I want to make one.”

  
Tony shrugs. “Sure, kid,” And hands him a napkin.

  
-/-

  
Peter ends up making nothing more than a slightly wrinkled napkin. Tony puts it in the very front of his display case. You really can’t miss it.

  
-/-

  
One day, there’s a bunch of title cards next to the napkins. Naming them.  
Clint and Bucky also keep glancing ay the case and laughing.

  
It's not hard to put two and two together.

  
-/-

  
All of Natasha’s, upon closer inspection, appear to be named something along the lines of ‘Perfect, beautiful. No one could do better.’

  
There are a fair few mocking names, but they’re not so much mean as they are inappropriate and funny.

  
Peter’s one is called ‘My insides after Tony’s cooking.’ It's a bit offensive. 

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to allthebucky on tumblr. for interacting with my post and helping spawn this mess. (did i really just write 2k about napkins?)
> 
> hope you liked it! there is some extra bits i can add, should i want to. so maybe there’ll be a part two, but at the moment this is finished!
> 
> i hope you liked it. comment what you thought! 
> 
> this is was on my tumblr which does not exist anymore. check out my [new one!](https://spideysstark.tumblr.com)
> 
> now, be safe, okay? i love you!


End file.
